


Gran fury.

by orange_crushed



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:19:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They sit in silence and Castiel passes him the bottle. There’s not much left to say. Sam takes a gulp and it burns going down, like the cheap shit it is. He holds the bottle up against the light. He can see the Fury through it, distorted like a funhouse mirror. She’s a tomb but Sam loves her. Loves everything that’s left.</p>
<p>"To the end of the world," he says.</p>
<p>"To the end of the world," says Castiel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gran fury.

He stands on the deck and watches the helicopter come down; rain sluices itself down his back and under the cuff of his jacket when he holds one hand up to keep his hood from flying away. It doesn’t bother him. He’s in head-to-toe waterproof gear anyway, since monsoon season this year doesn’t seem to want to fucking end. The chopper touches down and the landing crew sprints forward to unhook the cargo sling, get the fuel line attached. The Marshall is out first, getting pulled away by a flurry of people waving clipboards. And then there he is: standing stiff-backed by the gap of the door, then coming down the steps, striding through the puddles. His eyes scan everything but his head doesn’t move much. Sam remembers that, the posture, the contained way of moving: he always gave the impression of being a fixed point in the universe, a pin on which things turned. Certain things, anyway. Still, he looks different. He walks the same. But he looks grim, ragged, worn-out like the bottom of a shoe. There are holes in his sweater and his coat, and he’s got about a month’s worth of scraggly beard climbing his face like moss. Sam knows he was up on the wall. Doesn’t know how long.

“Castiel,” he calls. “Cas!” Sam holds up one hand and his hood flies off now, finally. Oh, well. Castiel stops, finds him, comes forward again with more purpose. He gets within a couple feet of Sam and sticks his hand out to shake. Sam takes his hand and Castiel wraps it with both of his own. For a second, Castiel actually smiles.

“Sam,” he says. “It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah.” There’s water in Sam’s eyes, running down his brow and his cheeks, flattening his hair to his face. “You too.”

They go through the ‘Dome together; Castiel listens and pays quiet attention while Sam points out the other pilots, the location of the lifts and the directions to the upper floors. They stand in the center of the bay and Castiel scans the Russian jaeger in silence, nodding his head while Sam speaks. And then Sam takes him further down the row, past the other Mark-IVs. There’s one bay at the end with a Mark-III in it. Only one. Castiel stares up at it for a long time. Like he’s not sure exactly what it is he’s looking at. “So,” Sam says at last, when it seems like Castiel’s going to stand there forever. “Are you hungry? Want me to take you upstairs? The cafeteria’s not much, but the noodles-“

“That’s fine,” says Castiel. “Lead the way.”

Over lunch they talk shop; how many jaegers, how many crews, the Marshall’s new plan, all the mods to the Fury that Sam’s been working on over the last year. Castiel still mostly listens. Sam tells him they’ve got four possible candidates for tomorrow’s trials, all good options- three guys, one woman- and Castiel sits there and nods calmly, accepting it, like he’s accepted everything Sam’s told him so far. Sam wishes he would do something, say something, that would let Sam get a read on what’s happening under the surface. He remembers the way Castiel used to challenge things, to interrupt everyone regardless of their rank. Right now, it’s like talking to blinking, eating, breathing furniture.

“Do you want their bios?” Sam asks. “I’ve got access to basic personnel files. Benefit of the job.” He’s got a tablet with him, and he pulls up their records to the screen, holds it over the table for Castiel to take. “It’s good to have a sense of who you’re-“

“Thank you, Sam, but no.” Castiel shakes his head and goes on eating. “I’m going to find out everything I need to know tomorrow, on the mat.”

“Oh,” says Sam. “Yeah, of course.” He takes the tablet back and looks down into it, into four unsmiling official photos.

Castiel’s room is across from his, so they say goodnight and Sam leaves him to get settled in. To give him a little privacy after a long and probably shitty trip. But he can’t help looking through the spyhole after his own door is shut. It’s been almost six years since he saw the guy. Sam wonders what the hell he’s been doing all this time. On the opposite side of the corridor, Castiel is digging around through his bags, stacking a short pile of clothes onto the shelf, pulling out a couple of books, a comm tablet with a cracked screen. And then he’s just standing there, staring into space. Turning slowly to look at the walls, the ceiling, the floor. His back turns to the door and Sam can only see the hard set of his shoulders as they melt a little, slump down. Castiel just stands there, staring at nothing. And then Sam can’t look at him anymore.

 

 

He remembers what they were like: everyone does. There were news reels and training tapes made of them. Sam’s watched them in the archives, when he was supposed to be doing research on core modifications and old battles. And he’s got video captures of his own, and photographs. Stuff from the handful of family vacations they ever took, stuff from the academy, victory day parties and graduations. A couple of recorded messages when they were out on the rim together, at a watch station far away from Sam. Dean always hogged the camera and held it too close, practically up his own nose, but Castiel used to snatch it out of his hands and say hello to Sam, study hard Sam, happy birthday, whatever it was they were missing. He watches a couple of them alone in his room in the morning before the trials. Dean’s grin takes up the whole screen while he talks about the shoulder cannons they’re building in, and can Sammy send him some Pringles in the next box, please and thank you. Over his shoulder somewhere, Castiel tells him to ace his qualifying exams. He comes into view for a second- Dean slings an arm around them both and their heads press together, dark and light, and Castiel beams outward, relaxed, happy, with the weight of Dean’s arm around his neck.

“You’re going to make us proud,” Castiel says, into the camera.

“Hell yes he is,” says Dean.

And then it ends.

 

 

Castiel is standing on the edge of the mat, ready before anyone else, barefoot and bare-shouldered in a tank top. Everybody looks but nobody says anything. There’s a cluster of ugly white scars along his left collarbone, twisting down his upper arm. They’re horrifying, but Sam knows he’s been cleared for duty, he’s seen the medical reports. So whatever damage was done, it wasn’t enough to keep him out of a cockpit forever. The other candidates line up on the opposite side, watching him, like they’re all trying to size him up, figure out which Castiel they’re getting: the ranger, the hero, the runaway. The scraggly beard is gone and he looks cleaner, maybe even a little younger. But his face is perfectly still. Placid, or just absent. Like he’s not even really here. Sam looks to the Marshall and gets a slight nod. Sam calls out the match-up, and it begins.

Cas takes Ivan down in about a second and a half; just spins and gets his staff under one knee, hooks him, flips him, end of the stick at his throat. He does it three more times, and then he’s up against Sumira. Sumira does a little better; she manages to feint by him and get a point on the back of his neck, along the spine. Castiel nods at her, approvingly, and then gets three points against her in quick succession. The fourth one is the end of the staff hovering just over her skull. Sumira inclines her head respectfully and then walks away, eyes dark and shoulders tight. Castiel takes out Lin and Steven without ever really breaking his distant composure, even though Steven ends up throwing the staff across the room and stalking out after the last point’s called. There’s palpable disappointment in the room. Sam doesn’t know what they were hoping for: defeat, maybe. To see an old superstar get thrown on his ass. Or maybe they were hoping for a glimpse of something that’s gone. Magic. Fireworks. Dean used to laugh out loud when he fought Castiel, when Castiel surprised him. It happened a lot. Dean could score three points against Castiel in a row, pushing past his defenses, and Castiel would smile and tag three back in fifteen seconds, Dean on his back on the mat, cracking up, reaching out a hand for Castiel to pull him to his feet. They never got angry, never threw a punch or hit a block with rage in their faces, the way other guys in training sometimes did. Sam’s seen the tapes; saw it a few times in real life, when he was visiting the station. They were more like waves than people, like seals skipping the currents: they crashed around and through each other. They jumped back and spun and hurled each other to the floor and got up and did it again. Sometimes it was brutal and quick, but it was always- Sam doesn’t know the right word for it, for what they had. Whatever it was, there doesn’t seem to be any left.

The Marshall takes Castiel aside and there’s some angry whispering; a couple of times Sam hears the words _responsibility_ and _good faith_ hissed out. He tries not to eavesdrop. Instead, he slides his boots off, pulls off his socks and tucks them into balls. Takes his jacket and his tags off. Stretches his arms over his head. And finally Castiel and the Marshall turn around and notice at the same time, and they both fall silent. The Marshall’s eyes widen, and Castiel’s narrow. It would be fucking hilarious, if Sam wasn’t actually a bundle of nerves right now. He’s either about to do something awesome, or to get his ass spectacularly kicked. Maybe both.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Mister Winchester?” the Marshall asks him.

“Last candidate,” Sam says. He picks up the staff that Steven threw, tests it, gives it a little spin. He looks at Castiel. “If you’re up for it.” Castiel looks at him for a long time, and the Marshall looks between them. Finally, he throws his hands up and stalks away, off the mat, back to the stairs. Sam guesses that’s about as much blessing as he’s going to get for this little rebellion. Castiel walks the edge of the floor, eyes still on Sam. He turns the staff in his hands. He doesn’t say anything. Sam takes position, raises the staff.

And then Castiel comes at him, faster than before, not so stiff and distant, ducking in and scoring a point against Sam before Sam even knows there’s a stick about to connect with his forehead. It stops and hangs there. Sam blinks up and the strangest feeling comes over him. It’s a lightness, a kind of surprise. Okay, there’s something in there, he thinks. He feels himself smiling. And he’s still smiling when he steps back, twisting to sweep Castiel off-balance, then to catch him in the center of the chest with the back-swing, and Castiel goes down flat with Sam’s staff at his throat. His eyes are focusing. Clear and sharp. Sam pulls him up. They start again. Castiel scores a point against him by ducking back under a swing and shoving Sam onto the ground with an arm pinned behind him. Face-down in the mat, Sam’s grinning. Sam flips and gets up and knocks Castiel’s staff aside to score a point of his own. And then they stop counting: they go back and forth across the mat, the quiet punctuated by the slap of feet, the ringing hit of wood. There’s silence from the crowd. It isn’t loud, the way it used to be. Sam doesn’t talk shit the way Dean used to, doesn’t goad Castiel into a short swing. And Castiel doesn’t smirk when he tips Sam over, doesn’t straddle him and take a point up close. It’s not the same. It’s not the same at all.

But it’s good.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” the Marshall says at last, clapping his hands. They break and go to their opposite sides, still breathing heavily, not looking at each other. Sweat is stinging in Sam’s eyes. “It’s fifteen to fifteen. I think you’ve proven your point.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sam says. He looks over at Castiel, feeling elated. But Castiel is looking back at him like a stranger.

 

 

“No,” Castiel tells him. Sam is standing below him on the steps, even though his height almost makes up for the difference.

“Cas,” says Sam. “We’re compatible. You felt it.”

“I said, _no_.” Castiel turns to go into his room but Sam takes his arm, holds him fast.

“We need you in that jaeger,” Sam says, firmly. “The world needs you in that jaeger. You need me. And I need you.” And maybe that’s the right thing to say- or maybe the wrong thing, because Castiel’s mouth drops open for a second, his eyes go hurt and stunned, like Sam just hit him in the face. Sam lets him go. Holds his hands up between them. Good faith. “We can do a test run tomorrow,” Sam says. He feels like he’s begging. He doesn’t care. It’s the end of the world, right? He’s not going to let pride stop him. “We can at least give it a chance.” Castiel stares at him, and then past him, like he’s seeing a ghost.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

 

 

The handshake takes and holds and for a couple of minutes everything is good- everything is right. They sync up and go through the motions and it’s like clockwork. Sam can feel the bond thrumming in the back of his skull, the quiet iron of Castiel’s mind holding steady and still. He didn’t know what it was like, couldn’t have imagined it. Wonder if this is what Dean felt, every time: like he was being held up by something stronger than he was, like they were perfectly joined- fused- at every point they met. He’s checking in with the Marshall, reading back their checks, when there’s a hiccup on the readout. An irregularity.Sam imagines- no, he feels- a wisp of thought fly past him. Like the start of a dream. He feels himself tugged away, and down. He fights it and feels momentarily overwhelmed- yeah, rookie in the cockpit, he should have guessed, he’s going to screw this up- until he realizes it’s not him. It’s not him. The screen flickers.

"Cas," says Sam. He looks across the cockpit and Castiel is staring forward through the viewer, eyes dilated and wild. "Cas, no, don’t- _fuck_!” He checks the monitors and yeah, shit, there he goes. “Marshall,” he says, into the comm. “He’s down- he’s following the rab-” he has time to say, and then Sam’s gone, too.

Sam opens his eyes.

They’re in the Fury still, but it looks- different. There’s no control set for the second-phase plasma cannons Sam installed. There’s a jet of water spraying in through a busted seam and Sam is hurrying to recalibrate their balance. His hands fly over the controls and there’s steam in his visor- atmosphere’s fucking up, pressure’s out of control-

“ _Cas_ ,” somebody shouts, and Sam turns his head. Dean is in the other harness. Dean, alive and roaring, with half his visor shattered off. “Cas, get that vent sealed!” Sam feels himself grit his teeth and- no, no he doesn’t. He feels _Castiel_ grit his teeth. He’s in Castiel’s head, looking through his eyes. This isn’t supposed to be possible, they’re not supposed to go this deep. They’re just supposed to observe. But he’s not in control. He’s just along for the ride, stuck in Castiel’s fucking brain. He feels the fear lance through him and swings up to the switches panel, snaps them over into emergency mode, and Dean hollers in triumph as something clicks back into place. “Fuckin-a, babe,” Dean says, and punches upwards; they swing forward and vertigo takes hold. They’re underwater. Sam feels it, and knows it at the same time: knows exactly where they were, what this is. He could recite the latitude and longitude. He could name the minute, the day. He remembers. He got the message within the hour.

_Cas_ , he thinks. _Cas, let this go_. Please. You have to let this go.

"Starboard!" Cas calls, and they’re walloped from the side, kaiju claws digging into metal plating, going for the heart. Dean and Castiel move together and they’re blocking, twisting up to pound one fist downward into the creature’s spine. The momentum is good and so’s the hit: the thing rolls away, scratching with its back feet to take another swing through the water. They’re chasing it, running clean in step, almost on it- and then there’s a rush against the front, a shot as it speeds up from an unseen chasm past them, wraps its tail around one leg and snatches them upwards, overturns them. They shake and heave in the harnesses and the jaeger lands on its back. Dean and Cas rotate, spin up for leverage but the thing is on them already, prehensile tail digging again. There’s a sudden crunch and the shriek of broken metal grinding on itself- a ceiling plate shears down under the strain and a jagged point goes through the shoulder of Castiel’s suit. Cas screams and Sam screams with him, and the world whites out for a second. He comes back to the sound of Dean’s voice, through the comm and also- also in his head. Dean’s voice coming straight through his mind, touching at every point. "I’m good," Cas croaks. He blinks and the world fades in and out, sickly. He can feel his arm hanging dead, busted collarbone screaming under his skin. He knows Dean can feel it. He can feel everything. "I’m here."

"With me," Dean says, and they move together, arcing up to crash an elbow down onto the creature’s head; through the pain Sam feels it, the connection’s still strong. A hit like that ought to have taken them out of the handshake entirely, but it didn’t cause so much as a blip on the monitors. He didn’t know. He didn’t understand. Maybe nobody did. Dean calls out an attack pattern and they move through it, freeing the wrenched left leg, shifting weight and turning up for another hit- but the kaiju presses its advantage down here, swims in a sharklike circle around them, and lashes out with that fucking tail- this time it hits right at the cockpit, claws digging in so far they breach the hull. " _FUCK_!” Dean yells. Sam’s heart- _Castiel’s heart_ \- races. The claws retract and water gushes in, starts to fill the bottom of the cockpit chassis. “Motherfu-” Dean says, and he’s cut off by another jolt to the frame. He’s trying to get the jets activated, trying to at least get them moving to the surface, when the thing wrenches off their dangling left leg and the whole body starts to topple. They go down in shocked silence, brains scrambling against each other in a white noise of conversation that Sam can barely comprehend. They’re speaking too fast, saying too many things. Sam tries to focus. He wonders what the fuck is happening in the ‘Dome, what kind of shit they’re raining down. He’s got to get Castiel out of this fucking mental break before they destroy the hangar. 

_Cas_ , he thinks again, desperately. This isn’t real. It’s not happening. 

_Let it go_!

The Fury gets the kaiju in a headlock, grips strong with both arms. Dean’s shouting something about the coolant system. It’s venting. He’s venting it directly down the kaiju’s throat. A part of Sam just goes numb. He can’t watch this. Jesus Christ, he can’t watch this. _Please, Cas, don’t make me watch this._ And Castiel is reaching for the controls when another hull breach collapses in front of him, slams a bracing rod into his abdomen. It doesn’t go through. There’s so much water spilling in, some of it laced with coolant. They’re going to freeze like this. They’re going to- Sam tries to get out, tries so fucking hard to get away from this memory, but Castiel has him too deep. The rod washes past them and Dean is saying something. He feels himself moving upright, being lifted, like he’s-

"No," Cas says, and struggles. But the pain in his broken collarbone and the weight of his arm bear him down. He’s pulled out of the water- almost up to their waists, now- and the harness locks him into the escape pod. "No, no no no," he’s screaming. " _Dean_!” Sam feels hysterical, gets a burst of strength that has him slamming his good hand up onto the lid, trying to find the release mechanism. “Dean, _god fucking damn it, Dean, please don’t_!”

"It’s okay," Dean says, into the comm. They can’t see each other anymore but he can feel it still: the warm weight of him in his mind. The light he gives off. "It’s gonna be okay." And the escape pod launches upwards at incredible velocity, hammering them flat as it speeds upwards. Castiel can’t make a sound; he feels crushed against the back of the pod. 

And then Sam sees it. 

He doesn’t know how. It’s not possible: disconnecting from the harness disconnects the drift. That’s just how it works. Castiel should have been out of Dean’s brain from the second he clicked out. But Sam can see it. It takes him a moment, but he does. He’s inside Castiel looking inside Dean’s mind, staring out across snow. He’s standing in the doorway to a cabin, and the world in front of him is white, sparkling white and beautiful, vast and empty like the sky. There are pine trees on the ridge and there is a dog running through the drifts. Sam sees a tall kid running after it and with a jolt, recognizes himself. Sam realizes he is Dean, watching himself chase the dog. Their old dog, Lucy. There’s joy now. Love. Lightness. Somebody is coming up behind him to lean against Dean’s shoulders. Sam is so cold. Getting colder. By now the coolant’s vented into the cockpit and Dean must be close to- but Sam feels somebody press against him from behind, feels an arm go around his waist. Solid and strong. The last anchor to the world. And now, here, from within Castiel, Sam feels Dean stir. He feels a spike of fear and then something else- something greater, something aching. Something pure. A rush of feeling across the bond that’s still holding on. Just one last flicker, one last flare of the candle flame. A star disappearing behind the dawn.

"I," he says-

-and then there’s nothing. 

Castiel shrieks in terror and Sam shrieks, too: rage and agony at the void in their heads, the nothingness that engulfs them. Castiel batters at the lid of the escape pod as it pops at the surface and bobs there on the waves; he screams and hammers at the lid and its faulty release pin that won’t budge. He smashes his fist into the lid until something cracks in his hand and sends hot spikes of pain up his arm. Castiel screams and screams and sucks in gulps of air and sobs them out, cries hysterically and still presses his broken hand against the glass, leaving bloody smears in the shape of his fingers. He sounds like an animal. He’s not saying words that Sam can understand. And then there’s a sharp light in Sam’s eyes, a searchlight maybe, a sunbeam, and then suddenly it’s a flashlight being shined into his pupils, and hands on his face, turning him to one side and then the other.

"Cas," he slurs. Chuck- because it’s Chuck, suddenly, nerdy little Chuck with his glasses on, getting right up in Sam’s face and smacking his cheeks a little- shakes his head.

"He’s back," Chuck calls over his shoulder. The Marshall looms into view.

Sam realizes he’s on the floor of the cockpit again, slumped against the bottom of his harness supports, with four techs kneeling around him. The cockpit looks normal- the plasma controls are back- and he can’t feel anyone in his head. Nobody. He lifts his hands and flexes them and finds that nothing’s broken. Right. Because that wasn’t him. He looks up and focuses on the Marshall.

"Sir," he says. "I’m sorry, I tried to-"

"We know." He looks grim.

"Is anyone-"

"Some broken clamps and a lot of soiled pants," says the Marshall. "Nobody died." He looks at Chuck. "Get him to the infirmary."

"Sir, I-"

"Later, Winchester," he says, and then he’s walking away. Sam looks over to the other set of harnesses, but there’s nobody there. Nobody on the floor, either. Castiel is gone.

 

 

They tell Sam they’re sorry, but there’s no way. The Gran Fury is going to stay in her berth for this fight. They can’t put an untested rookie and a basket case in there- not after this morning’s performance- and just hope for the best. Yes, they know they need another jaeger. No, it’s too fucking bad. Yes, that’s a final decision. Sam stalks out of that meeting and spends the next few hours stewing in his room.

And for some reason, he decides to take a walk up to the upper decks, to the scaffolding above the jaeger bays. He gets out of the lift and stares out across the hangar for a while, watching crews swarm like ants around the giant metal bodies. They’re even working on the Fury, getting the grips re-calibrated after Castiel’s nightmare clenched them tight around the security railings and pulled part of the decking off. Sam doesn’t know why they’re bothering, since they haven’t got any fucking pilots for it anymore. He guesses that if the world actually does end in the next two days, they might still want him and Castiel to go die in the suit anyway. It’s not a comforting thought. He’s dwelling on it, though, like a sore tooth, when there’s a clinking sound behind him. Sam turns around. It’s Castiel, slumped against the bottom railing, his knees drawn up. A mostly-empty bottle of vodka’s slipped out of his grasp. He picks it up and rights it with some effort, and then looks up at Sam.

"They said it was impossible." His head leans back to rest against the rail. "Post-traumatic stress. I was disconnected forty-five full seconds before his monitors zeroed out. They told me I couldn’t have felt it. That my mind was making it up." He smiles, humorlessly, at the ceiling far above their heads. "They didn’t understand. It never turned off. With him-" Castiel says, and stops. He closes his eyes. "It never turned off." 

Sam doesn’t have anything to say to that. He knows. He sits down beside him, back against the railing. After a while, Castiel opens his eyes and turns his head to look at Sam sideways. “So,” he says. “The Marshall didn’t want me. You did.” 

"You’re a Mark III pilot," Sam says. It is, strictly speaking, true. Never mind that Castiel has been in his head now, knows everything. Knows how fucking lonely he was out here. Knows what he did to make his connections, to find one sad, lost man in a sea of sad, lost men that wander the coastlines now. 

"Yeah," says Castiel. And then: "I saw him."

"What?"

"In your head," he says. "I got into your head and I saw him. He’s all over your mind. It was your- I don’t know, I think it was your graduation. I saw him standing there in your memories and I just-" his head rolls to the side, away from Sam. There’s a silence punctuated by the muted sounds of riveting and trucks rolling past, far below. "I’m sorry," he says. 

"It happens," says Sam. He feels a little bit of his earlier hurt seeping away. He still knows he was right. He felt it. "It doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. That _we_ wouldn’t work.”

"No, I’m-" Castiel lets out a thin little laugh. "I mean, yes. I’m sorry for that, too. For today. But I was- I’m sorry, Sam," he says. "I should have stayed. I should have been there for you." Sam stares at him. Castiel looks up, and his shoulders straighten a little. "I thought I lost everything. I didn’t think about what you lost. I didn’t stop to think." He leans back again, like it’s too much effort to keep upright. When he talks again, it’s to the roof. "Dean would have kicked my ass for walking away."

"He would have kicked my ass for letting you," says Sam. "I could have found you before. I could have looked."

"Maybe," says Castiel, doubtfully.

They sit in silence and Castiel passes him the bottle. There’s not much left to say. Sam takes a gulp and it burns going down, like the cheap shit it is. He holds the bottle up against the light. He can see the Fury through it, distorted like a funhouse mirror. She’s a tomb but Sam loves her. Loves everything that’s left.

"To the end of the world," he says.

"To the end of the world," says Castiel.

 

 

Sam was right: they end up in the robot after all. 

"Cas!" he yells, thrashing in the harness. He is broadcasting his desperation through their minds and he knows Castiel can feel it. "Cas, don’t you fucking _dare_!” But Castiel is already on the floor, helmet off and face bloody, turning the manual catch for the self-destruct. The last nuclear jaeger is going to save the world. And across the cockpit Sam is getting lifted into his escape pod with a smashed helmet and a shattered elbow, against his will. He tries to reach the manual override but only succeeds in smacking his bad arm against the pod bay walls. Castiel stands up to look at him, and Sam can only see a glimpse before he’s pushed up into the pod, locked into place. He feels Castiel through the drift, just as it’s disconnecting. They hang on, together, a second longer than they should. Like a real handshake. A final connection. Just before the emptiness, there’s one last thought. There’s no sadness in it. There’s no fear. And Sam could swear- he will swear, for the rest of his long life- that in that second, he hears two voices. _Sam_. Sammy.

_You made us proud_. 

And then he’s rocketing to the surface, he’s headed for the light.

 

.


End file.
